News and Notes from Big 12 Football Media Days
ARLINGTON, Texas – It was a good two days down in Arlington for the 2023 Big 12 Football Media Days and the spirit of the 2023 football season was underway. I’ve shared this feeling on my radio show at Triple Play Sports and with friends of mine, but this Big 12 football season is going to be the most unique in history with the one exception of the very first season. As a child of the old Big Eight and Southwest Conference, loving the Big Eight, but growing up in Dallas, Texas in the middle of the Southwest Conference I thought I had died and gone to heaven with the advent of the Big 12. The only problem was my school was still reeling from NCAA probation and Bob Simmons couldn’t coach them out of it either. Oklahoma State would have to wait on football success, while Eddie Sutton, an old Southwest Conference coach and an old Big Eight player kicked some butt on the hardwood.
Fast forward to this season and you have the four new schools in BYU, Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF that come in excited as can be and with huge smiles on their faces. Oklahoma and Texas have one foot in the Big 12 circle and the other in the SEC. Make no mistake they badly want to win on their way out the door, but they have eight former conference brethren that want to kick their asses on the way out the door.
It is with those emotional dynamics that we welcome you to a football season that will be like no other. So here are some notes from Big 12 Media Days.
Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire went to the topping off crane in Lubbock towering over the new south end zone project at AT&T Jones Stadium.
“You know I’m not scared of heights, but I had to think when I had to sign all these waivers and then gear up in the equipment and hard hat to climb up there,” McGuire told me. “I loved it. It was a great view and when that project is complete I can’t wait to coach a night game there in AT&T Jones Stadium because it is going to be amazing.”
Great coach, better you than me because open air heights turn my knees to jelly. One observation on one of the new coaches came as I walked in on Thursday with the UCF crew. I have always had respect for UCF head coach Gus Malzahn. I like his style of football and the way he handles himself and his teams dating back to Tulsa and when he was at Auburn. I didn’t realize how tall he is. Malzahn is 6-4 and an athletic 185 pounds.
I asked him if he was a forward in basketball as he looks the basketball part.
“Back in high school I played a little basketball, but I wasn’t really that good,” he joked. “I’m not as athletic as those guys.”
Malzahn went to Fort Smith Christian School for high school in Arkansas. He walked on at Arkansas in 1984 playing for Razorbacks head coach Ken Hatfield. He later transferred to Henderson State and was a two-year letterman at wide receiver. Maybe he’s telling the truth on not being as good as he looks like he might have been in basketball.
When is a newcomer not really a newcomer? When it is former Oklahoma State offensive coordinator, long-time Texas Tech assistant, and West Virginia head coach Dana Holgorsen. I had a couple of chances to talk to Holgorsen, who loves it in Houston. He is not on the hot seat as some would make you think. His athletic director Chris Pezman loves him.
Now he does need to decide on a starting quarterback between talented Texas Tech transfer Donovan Smith, sophomore Lucas Coley, or JC transfer Ul Ale.
“Yeah, it's funny, I was talking with Case Keenum (former UH QB) the other day, and I asked him about competition,” Holgorsen said of the decision. “Back when we were here in 2008, Blake Joseph and Case Keenum were battling back and forth. I asked him the importance of when you name a starter, and he goes, “I wouldn't. Just let them compete, because if they compete, it makes them better, and then it should take care of itself.’ I'm not concerned with it right now. They've been 50/50, and we knew they were going to be 50/50, and they're going to continue to be 50/50 until one just makes it clear. So I think that's going to naturally take care of itself.”
As for quarterbacks, one that had much expected of him last season and didn’t deliver was Baylor’s Blake Shapen. The same Bears quarterback that went like 20-for-20 in the first half of the Big 12 Championship Game in 2021 that Baylor held off Oklahoma State 21-16.
His head coach Dave Aranda is very forgiving despite a lackluster second half of the season by Shapen that helped lead to Baylor going 6-7.
“Very proud of Blake. I feel like I've felt some of the same things,” Aranda said. “I have to imagine a lot of you guys have, if you step into an opportunity and you just -- it's clicking and you're rolling. It's not a thought of, man, it's this easy, but it's like, hey, this is pretty good. Then to go upon hard times and to see there's blind spots the whole time that you didn't know and then to address those things and to come out stronger because of it is such a good story, and to come out of it with like a pure heart, not like I'm going to prove to you or I'm going to show you or this to you or whatever. Not to chase approval but to really work for improvement, which is way cool.”
Aranda is expecting every Baylor fans will see it and feel it from Shapen this season.
“There's been a lot of work into it,” he added of Shapen. “I think when you're in a pit, to climb your way out of the pit and come out stronger because of it I think is one of the beautiful things in our sport.”
BYU linebacker Ben Bywater is a linebacker, a meathead, which most of us (yes, I played linebacker) consider ourselves, but the 6-3, 235 pound Bywater has more panausch panache than most linebackers. He has the fancy hairstyle, wore a black suit with a tie that sparkled, and he has a big persona.
“Yeah, I’m a linebacker, but I’m more like a big-time offensive player,” Bywater said. Yes, he has doen well with the ball on interceptions with two pick-sixes. “I keep telling our offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick to line me up and get me the ball. I’m ready to play some offense.”
His head coach Kalani Sitake is a former offensive meathead as a fullback. He is BYU through and through, played for Hall of Fame coach Lavell Edwards in Provo. He loves the homefield advantage his Cougars have.
“Well, I'm going to go back to the BYU fans. They're amazing,” Sitake said of the atmosphere in Lavell Edwards Stadium. “I am one, so the energy and the excitement that they bring to the games, I think it's a good experience for visiting teams, as well. They give you ice cream before the fourth quarter, guys. I think everybody should do that. But should probably extend it to the coaches on the sideline. That would be really cool. That could be innovative where I'm eating ice cream going into the fourth quarter.”
I’m all for it, ice cream for the radio sideline reporters.
With all those emotions, there will be lots of great finishes, lots of close games, always is in the Big 12. The coach of the defending champs, Chris Klieman of Kansas State practically guarantees it.
“You saw that last year with the amount of teams that either won one-score games or knocked people off, and every week you had to have your “A” game or you were going to get beat,” Klieman told the media. “I think that's what college football is starting to become, as well. Recruiting is never ending. The transfer portal is never ending. So there's so many players switching teams, so you're always going to have increased parity. Some of the guys that maybe weren't playing as much for you are on another team. Sometimes even in the same league. That always is going to increase competition. College football is really healthy, and I'm excited about the direction it's going, especially once we get to the 12-team playoff.”
Finally, the little cub reporter from OU couldn’t resist and had to bring up Bedlam to Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy again. Gundy hammered home his answer. He’s done it know wo often it seems rehearsed, but still genuine.
The same goes for Oklahoma head coach Brent Vanables as he had to be asked and told that Gundy blames OU for leaving the Big 12, which that is truly why they won’t play in the future.
“Look, I'm not in control of whether or not we play Oklahoma State. I love college football. I love the traditions of the game. I love rivalry games,” Venables said. “Oklahoma and Oklahoma State have played for over 100 years, and Oklahoma has been dang good in those games for a long time. But whether or not we play them in the future, nobody is asking me what I think. If they do ask me, I'll tell them what I think. I'd love to play the game. But we're going to play the schedule that they put in front of us.”
So, that’s a good-bye from AT&T Cowboys Stadium, lets get to fall camp and get to the games.